Ray Niedzwiecki had been waiting some 65 years for this day.
The 81-year-old Pennsylvania native, who has been bowling since 1949, is the subject of a heartwarming new video which was filmed as he bowled the first perfect game of his life.
The game occurred at Modern Lanes in Exeter, Penn., where Niedzwiecki was participating in his bowling league. Niedzwiecki's team had already won the league championship, so he was going to try and use a new ball. But the captain of his team provided some prescient advice.
"He says, 'No, don’t do that. We’re going to go all out. We want to win as much as we can.’ So then I just put the other ball away, and I done good,” Niedzwiecki told WNEP 16.
Niedzwiecki went on to throw 12 consecutive strikes, sending everyone at the alley into a frenzy. The video below, posted on Modern Lanes' Facebook page, already has 11,000 shares.
"It's a super hard achievement for anybody," Modern Lanes owner Mark Mancini told WNEP 16. "But to be 81-years-old and accomplish it, it was the most amazing thing I ever saw."
WNEP 16's story on Niedzwiecki can be seen below:
In an extremely odd coincidence, another 81-year-old man in Pennsylvania recently bowled the first perfect game of his life
